You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories.

It is simply that person's time. Ours will come in this lifetime or the next. No matter. Continue to practice.

Watch yourself. Every minute we change. It is a great opportunity. At any point, we can step out of our frozen selves and our ideas and begin fresh.

I think talent is like a water table under the earth—you tap it with your effort and it comes through you.

Writing is the crack through which you can crawl into a bigger world, into your wild mind.

It is odd that we never question the feasibility of a football team practicing long hours for one game; yet in writing we rarely give ourselves the space for practice.

Actually, when I look at my old notebooks, I think I have been a bit self-indulgent and have given myself too much time to meander in my discursive thoughts. I could have cut through sooner. Yet it is good to know about our terrible selves, not laud or criticize them, just acknowledge them. Then, out of this knowledge, we are better equipped to make a choice for beauty, kind consideration and clear truth. We make this choice with our feet firmly on the ground. We are not running wildly after beauty with fear at our backs.